


Learning Curve

by kathkin



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, space dorks in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-18 23:57:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3588729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathkin/pseuds/kathkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> “You see, that’s your problem. That attitude."</i> Jamie learns a lesson about paying compliments and talking to women.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning Curve

Jamie rapped on the door impatiently. “Are you not dressed yet?”

“Stop _rushing_ me,” Zoe called, her voice muffled. “This dress has so many fastenings. I don’t understand how these Vitellian women do it.”

“Aye, well I’m not waiting much longer.” He hovered beside the door. “I’m hungry.”

“You go on ahead, then.” There was a sound of fumbling, and a yelp.

Jamie rolled his eyes and slumped against the wall beside the door. “It cannae be _that_ hard. It’s just a dress.”

“An absurd, impractical dress,” she retorted. There was further rustling and thumping as she ranted on. “I don’t understand – why women’s fashions – have to be so – so –” She was silent for half a moment. Then the door opened and she sidled out, smoothing down her hair. “There. That’s not so bad, is it?”

He looked her up and down. He’d never seen her in anything floor length before, let alone with so many ruffles. She was all in red silk that fell in fancy layers down to her feet, bedecked with strings of crystal beads that clinked gently when she moved. “Aye. You almost look like a lady.”

She was brushing down her ruffles, straightening them out. “Hmm?” She gave him a mild look, then a hard stare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Eh?”

“Are you saying I don’t normally look like a lady?”

Jamie shifted uncomfortable, befuddled. She was fuming at him. He didn’t understand how he’d managed to make her so cross so quickly. “I don’t – I mean, I – och, I was only trying to pay you a compliment.”

“Well, if that’s how you go about complimenting people, maybe don’t bother from now on.” She stalked away, her beads rattling angrily.

Jamie trailed behind her. “I was just trying to say you look nice.”

“Oh, drop it, Jamie.”

He shrugged, his pride stinging, feeling more than a touch defensive. It was hardly his fault she couldn’t take a compliment. And it wasn’t as if she was especially ladylike on a normal day. He’d always assumed she want to be, or else didn’t know how. Now she was angry for no good reason, and it was likely to spoil what had so far been an unusually nice evening. “Och, I’ll never understand women,” he muttered.

“You see, that’s your problem,” said Zoe, her gaze fixed firmly ahead.

“What’s my problem?”

“That attitude!”

“What attitude?”

“That attitude, that you’re expressing!”

Jamie blinked. “I’m nae expressing any attitude.”

Zoe rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why I bother. You never listen to me.”

“I’m listening now, aren’t I?”

“Alright.” Zoe hiked up her fancy skirts so as not to trip over them. “Maybe if you stopped trying to understand women and started trying to understand me, things wouldn’t be so difficult.”

“I dinnae follow.”

“It’s really quite simple.” She glanced at him and shook her head at the befuddled expression upon his face. “Oh, go away and think about it.”

They turned a corner in the dimly lit passage, and there they found the Doctor hovering outside his own door, still dressed in his usual saggy clothes. “Oh, there you two are,” he said. “You look very nice, Zoe.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” she said pointedly, throwing Jamie a look as if to say _there, see, it’s not hard_. “Shall we?” She offered the Doctor her arm. He took it with a smile.

“Come along, Jamie,” he said as Zoe led him away down the passage.

Jamie brought up the rear, musing that he had a lot to learn about women – no, he had a lot to learn about Zoe. He was startled to find he understood what she was getting at, or at least some of it. He resolved that he _would_ make sense of the rest, if only to stop her going off like that again, and picked up his pace to catch up.


End file.
